The UN weapons chief, Hans Blix, is likely to deliver a critical report to the security council on Iraq’s cooperation with the inspectors, noting that Saddam Hussein has routinely exploited looming deadlines to deliver last-minute results, a senior UN official said yesterday.
Dr Blix is scheduled to deliver his next report to the security council on Friday, and its contents are expected to dominate future discussions among its members on whether to follow America and Britain to war.
The chief inspector’s comments on the grudging and calculating nature of Iraq’s cooperation follows conversations with other officials reflecting widespread disillusionment within the UN since the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq three months ago.
Although Iraq has been more forthcoming in delivering information on its chemical and biological weapons programmes since late January — and five days ago commenced destruction of al-Samoud missiles — there is a growing sense in the UN of too little, too late.
Such disappointment is expected to figure in Blix’s report on Friday although it is highly unlikely that he will depart from the neutral and highly diplomatic language of his previous reports.
”He is going to say that he has noticed that when there is the pressure of a meeting of the security council,” a senior UN official said yesterday, ”10 days before, there is an opening” — documents are produced, private interviews with Iraqi scientists are held as planned, and the entire process of inspections moves into a higher gear.
However, the cooperation drops off as soon as the pressure is removed. ”They are still not open,” the UN official said. ”There is always an element of trying to bargain down.”
Such suspicions had been voiced earlier by UN officials, particularly in relation to interviews with Iraqi scientists and weapons experts.
The officials said they believed that the scientists had been coached. Nor are they convinced by the claims of Iraqi authorities that they have only limited influence in persuading scientists to agree to unchaperoned interviews — one of the most vexing issues of the weapons inspections.
The pattern of procrastination by Iraq continued yesterday with a slow-down in the destruction of al-Samoud missiles, which were banned for exceeding the UN’s range limit of 150km. Only three missiles were crushed yesterday – half of the number destroyed on each of the two previous days — ostensibly because of the Muslim new year.
President Saddam’s senior weapons adviser warned this week that the process could come to a complete standstill if Baghdad sensed that Washington was intent on going alone into a war.
”If it turns out at an early stage during this month that America is not going the legal way, then why should we continue?” said General Amer al-Saadi, the Iraqi president’s senior weapons adviser.
Such an approach has led to cynicism over whether Iraq intends to complete the destruction of the banned missiles, thought to number more than 100, or indeed whether it has abandoned plans to develop another prohibited missile in the future.
Two days before the destruction of the al-Samouds got under way Iraq conducted static tests of the new missile.
At the same time, however, Iraq has in the past fortnight made efforts to account for its stocks of chemical and biological weapons by excavating a site where it claims aerial bombs containing anthrax and other toxins were destroyed in 1991. It has also begun investigations at other locations where VX and other agents were dumped.
UN and Iraqi officials held technical talks on the investigations on Monday, but there are serious doubts among weapons experts over whether the process is feasible.
The digging operations have also failed to persuade weapons inspectors that Iraq has actually undertaken the ”change of heart” urged by Blix during his visit to Baghdad nearly a month ago. – Guardian Unlimited Â